Nevadans want to hear about private meetings

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2003 | 10:57 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Nevada officials want to know what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is trying to hide behind the closed doors of its technical review of Yucca Mountain information.

Thomas Matula, a NRC senior engineer, announced in a memo earlier this month that closed-door meetings will examine information gathered for the nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but the public as well as state and county officials won't be allowed to participate.

"We can not conceive of reasons they would want to meet in private," said Bob Loux, head of the State Nuclear Waste Projects Office.

Loux said earlier comments made by Reid that "there must be something going on they don't want us to hear" are right on mark.

Loux suspects the NRC is telling the Energy Department to "play ball" and get everything in order to the agency can grant them the license application.

Reid believes they are discussing the department's progress on the license application for the project, now slated to be submitted in December 2004, agrees.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission appears to be in bed with the Energy Department, but they aren't married yet so this is not right," Reid said.

Reid said this is the first time the state knows it is not at the table, but not likely the first time it has not been invited.

NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said the closed-door review is not exactly a meeting but an independent evaluation by the commission on the department's activities related to the project.

She said under similar inspections for nuclear power plants, state officials usually do not participate but that the commission is now evaluating whether to develop a protocol so a state can participate in a case such as this.

Gagner said the NRC staff will visit the Energy Department's facility and look at its work so far on the project.

She noted that there are things in place during the pre-licensing phases that need to involve and do involve other stakeholders but this is "not quite that type of thing," so there was not a specific reason the state was barred from the evaluation.

In September 2002, former Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa wrote Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and the NRC calling meetings without Nevada and the public involved "unlawful."

But in February 2003, the commission's Inspector General told a Senate panel that meetings without Nevada did not violate any laws since communication occurred during informal meeting, which was consistent with policy surrounding the site.